I am and always have been a bargain shopper…

Growing up, I learned that shopping at thrift stores and garage sales was the best way to make my money go the farthest.  It was always a game every Saturday morning to go garage sale hunting with my Mom.  Friday night she would make a map on a blank sheet of paper and we would get up early, have donuts and head out.  I always had fun and didn’t realize the REAL reason we were shopping at garage sales was that she was a single mother & teacher working 2 jobs and this was the only way we could survive.  Not until I was in my later teens did I finally realize how we had gotten through the hard times after she divorced my father and we moved back to Oklahoma and by then, it was so ingrained in me to spend on a budget that even today, at 51 years old, I rarely, RARELY pay full price for anything, it just goes against my nature.

My love for second-hand goods isn’t just about price.  I love reusing things that are already out there.  I much prefer the quality of yesteryear and a lot of things I grew up with are now “vintage”.  The one thing about shopping at thrift stores and consignment shops has definitely taught me is, sizes have gotten BIGGER!  A vintage designer dress in size 14 is more like a size 10  in today’s sizing.  As society got bigger, so did the sizing, which is kind of freaky.

I am also a collector of vintage cowboy boots, handbags, jewelry, and pottery.  Finding gems secondhand makes me giddy!  I learned to keep my game face when I was a kid, the one thing my mother taught me, never give away that you found a treasure in someone else’s trash.  Although I will be the FIRST to admit, I hate to haggle, much to my best friend Kelli’s dismay, she is the Haggle QUEEN!  When we go out treasure hunting together, we are pretty much unstoppable.

If you follow my YouTube channel, my viewers see me reviewing planner and stationery products I have purchased at a little shop called NPS Market Square.  I head there every Saturday morning I am in town and shop for ‘stuff’.  You can’t really go there with a shopping list of specific items because you will be woefully disappointed.  You can never guarantee what you will find there.  It’s quite literally a cavalcade of consumer goods that you have to sometimes actually dig through to see everything that’s there…and I love it.

So this past Saturday, as I unloaded the car, I thought about taking a couple of photos for my Instagram account and then I decided to just do a Haul video of everything I purchased that day that was stationery or crafting supply related.

How I bargain shop and my stationery & craft supply haul

I go every weekend and this is where I get a lot of my stationery supplies that I have in my stash, or as the Viking in me would say, my Horde!

I can’t promise you will find the same things, but I will say that you will be in for an adventure if you ever go there.  And if you don’t live in Utah, search for damaged freight stores or auction houses in your area and see what you can find.  It’s our little-hidden gem here in SLC and I enjoy it and hope you will too.

Badass Valkyrie